Toxic whole wheat Christmas wrapping paper cardboard tubes

Day 22 of this diet ….of healthy new lifestyle….of this doctor induce torture. 

Down 17 pounds from Paris. 

Yesterday I had oatmeal for breakfast and a salad for lunch. Then I did 500 calories on the elliptical machine. Then I mowed the lawn. Then I planted tomatoes. Then I vacuumed up spring time cat hair. 

For dinner I really wanted some pasta. I earned it. 

Real pasta, the Durum wheat pasta from Italy, is one of those refined flour products I should probably avoid for a while so I came up with a plan. Try whole wheat “pasta”. I have had buckwheat soba noodles is Japanese restaurants before. They are nutty and earthy and good. Shouldn’t whole wheat penne be OK? Why not? Here was the recipe:

• Dark greens sautéed in a tiny bit of olive oil with garlic and red chili flakes.
• Some Cannellini beans also sautéed in a bit of olive oil and garlic.
• A quarter of a box of whole wheat “pasta” (instead of the 2 whole boxes I would normally eat).
• Some big plump sea scallops sautéed for 14 seconds in olive oil and smoked paprika.
• This whole thing would then be piled into a fabulous tower and sprinkled with some lemon juice, chopped olives, and toasted pine nuts.

Sounds OK right? 

So….my plump little scallops were cooked perfectly in their smoky oil. The wilted greens were spicy with chili and garlic. The Cannellini beans had soaked up the flavor of everything else. 

And the whole wheat “pasta”?  

Vile! 

Remember last year when we learned that people in China were soaking cardboard in solvents and food coloring then stuffing it into Hum Bow to sell on the street as BBQ’d pork? Imagine a cardboard tube, say one used for Christmas wrapping paper. You soak it in carbolic acid and acetone for 9 days until it shrinks and becomes rubbery. They you ship it to Arizona where it hardens and bakes in the sun like some Mexican immigrant hating Republican woman who has smoked all her life. Then you box it up, put an Italian name on it, and ship it to an upscale supermarket. Clearly that is what is going on here. 

My toxic Christmas wrapping paper cardboard tubes were hard, flavorless, chewy, but with a chalky undertaste of acrylic paint and Round Up. After eating about four of the vile pennes I started flicking them off my plate towards the cats. 

The kittens would have nothing to do with the inedible tubes save for batting them around until they got lost under the couch. 

As god is my witness, it’s better to have no pasta at all than to have toxic whole wheat Christmas wrapping paper cardboard tubes. Never again. 

But it’s OK. I cast my gaze westward, towards Maui, and think of crab pizza at Hali'imaile. Not too much longer my little crab covered magic pillow of love. 29 days and counting. I can smell you already.

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